April 18, 1970: Giants-Reds slugfest yields Jim Johnson’s sole major-league win

A modest crowd of 9,018 fans gathered at Cincinnati’s Crosley Field on Saturday, April 18, 1970, as much of the nation was riveted on activities that took place earlier in the week many thousands of miles above the Earth. Millions of TV sets across the land were focused on the return to Earth and dramatic recovery for the three astronauts aboard the spaceship Apollo 13. 

Although it would certainly not rank in history with the adventures of Apollo 13, the game that featured San Francisco Giants’ lefty reliever Jim Johnson’s one win during his brief major-league career had many bizarre and memorable moments.

The Cincinnati Reds came into the game on a roll, winners of four straight and holding a 3½-game lead over the visiting Giants and Atlanta Braves in the National League West Division. It was in 1970, under their first-year Hall of Fame manager Sparky Anderson, that the Reds would be dubbed the Big Red Machine. (Cincinnati won the National League pennant but fell to Baltimore in the World Series.) 

The game featured four future Hall of Famers (Johnny Bench, Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, and Tony Perez).1 The Reds were moving into a new ballpark, and venerable Crosley Field would be their home field for just over two months more, until its game of June 24, also against the Giants, was played.2

The game marked only the third appearance on the mound for Johnson, an All-American while pitching for Western Michigan University, where as of 2023 he still ranked first in the Broncos’ history in ERA (1.34) as well as win percentage at .900 (18-2).

After a tough major-league debut against Atlanta in the Braves’ home opener, Johnson was more effective in his second outing in Houston. That game, an 11-9 Giants win, featured the ejection of his roommate Gaylord Perry, who was tossed from the contest while arguing a balk called against Johnson. It proved to be the only time that Perry was tossed from a game for arguing a call in his Hall of Fame career.3 Johnson’s first major-league strikeout came in the April 16 game, against a fellow alumnus of Western Michigan, Astros pitcher Jim Bouton.

As the April 18 game began, the spectators included Johnson’s in laws, John and Ruth Wagner, who made the seven-hour trip from their home in Muskegon, Michigan to see their son-in-law in action.  While this game will be forever remembered by the Wagner clan, the same could also be said for a handful of other participants in this bizarre contest.

Jim McGlothlin got the start for the Reds but left after 3⅔ innings with a pulled groin muscle.4 McGlothlin was replaced by Ray Washburn with the Giants holding what proved to be a short-lived 3-1 lead.

In the bottom of the fourth, the Reds scored seven runs to give themselves a seemingly comfortable 8-3 lead. San Francisco starting pitcher Frank Reberger walked leadoff batter Tony Perez. Catcher Bench doubled to right field, scoring Perez from first base. First baseman Lee May singled to center, scoring Bench and making it 3-3.

Bernie Carbo, the left fielder, walked. Dave Concepcion sacrificed and put May and Carbo in scoring position. Reberger struck out Washburn, and then walked Pete Rose intentionally. Reberger struck out second baseman Tommy Helms, but the strikeout pitch was wild, May scored, the Reds were ahead, 4-3, and the bases were still loaded.

After Reberger had thrown two balls to Bobby Tolan, Giants manager Clyde King called on Johnson to enter the fray. Johnson completed a walk to Tolan (charged to Reberger), forcing in a run. Perez came to bat for the second time in the inning. Johnson threw a wild pitch and Rose scored. Perez then singled to center and Helms and Tolan scored. It was a rare situation where one could say that four inherited runners had all scored. None of the runs were charged to Johnson. Bench reached on an error, but May grounded out to end the inning. The score stood Reds 8, Giants 3.

Neither team scored in the fifth, a quiet inning in which the only baserunner was Carbo, who walked.

Before the start of the game, Cincinnati pitchers had been very effective at the beginning of the season, allowing but 2.09 earned runs per game while the relievers had allowed two runs in 27⅔ innings. The staff suffered a huge bump in ERA during this game.

In the Giants’ sixth, Washburn walked Mays, McCovey, Ken Henderson, and Al Gallagher, forcing in a run. King called on Tony Cloninger to relieve, and catcher Russ Gibson grounded into a pitcher-to-catcher-to-first double play. But Bob Heise singled to left and picked up his second and third RBIs of the game. The Reds still had the lead, 8-6. Steve Whitaker pinch-hit for Jim Johnson and walked. Bobby Bonds walked. The bases were loaded again.

Ron Hunt is probably remembered most by baseball fans for his penchant for getting hit by a pitch; he led the league seven years in a row in this painful department. This time Hunt hit a grand slam to the screen in left field – the first and only one of his career. His six RBIs in the game were also a career best.

“A home run was the last thing on my mind,” Hunt said afterward. “After I hit it, I didn’t think it was going over the fence. I watched the outfielder [Carbo] and he acted like he was going to catch it.”

“You even hit it against the wind,” said Johnson, listening in. You don’t know your own strength.”5 It was 10-8, Giants. Johnson was gone, but he was the pitcher of record.

Mike McCormick relieved and the 1967 Cy Young Award winner quickly stopped the bleeding as he allowed but one run the remainder of the game, while the Giants’ bats added six more tallies to make the final score 16-9. The Giants scored their 16 runs on just 10 hits, thanks to the generous Reds pitching staff walking 15 batters.6

Before the Reds’ Hal McRae had been retired for the game’s final out, 23 walks had been issued by both teams’ pitchers, a total that at the time was just one shy of the National League record for two teams in a game. In Johnson’s 1⅓ innings pitched, he gave up one of those walks, as well as one hit. 

Despite the fact that Johnson was credited with the win, and pitched respectably in this wild contest, the game was the last that Johnson pitched in a major-league uniform. When Juan Marichal was activated to the roster after recovering from a reportedly severe allergic reaction to penicillin during the Giants spring-training jaunt to Japan, Johnson was sent down to Phoenix.   

After completing his 1970 season with the Triple-A Phoenix Giants, Johnson surprisingly retired at the age of 24, beginning a career in education in which he became superintendent of schools in North Muskegon.

Johnson didn’t just face a bunch of no-names during his brief three-game major-league career. Of the 24 batters who had plate appearances against him, five (Hank Aaron, Orlando Cepeda, Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan, and Tony Perez) became Hall of Famers. Johnson also pitched to two-time NL batting champ Tommy Davis as well as Rico Carty, who topped all NL hitters in batting average in 1970.

The final hitter Johnson faced during his final game with the Reds was the all-time hits leader in baseball history, Pete Rose. His last hit allowed (by Perez) and his last out (Rose) were to a pair of superstars.

“My father was on Cloud Nine for years after that game,” Jim Johnson’s wife told the author. “He often said, that other than the birth of his three children, it was the biggest thrill of his life,” added Mary Wagner Johnson Moyes. 

Johnson succumbed to pancreatic cancer in December of 1987 at the age of 42, a proud possessor of one major-league victory on April 18, 1970.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Bruce Slutsky and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Baseball-Reference.com.

Sources

Much of the information on this game came from the Cincinnati Enquirer and the San Francisco Examiner of April 19, 1970. Also used were Retrosheet.org, Baseball-Reference.com, the Western Michigan University Media Guide and interviews in August 2021 with Jim Johnson’s wife, Mary.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CIN/CIN197004180.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1970/B04180CIN1970.htm

Notes

1 As the all-time leader in base hits, Pete Rose undeniably had the statistics to ensure induction had it not been for his being banned for life because of his gambling. A fifth Hall of Famer working the game was Cincinnati manager Sparky Anderson. 

2 Riverfront Stadium, one of many “cookie cutter” stadiums built in this era, served as the Reds home for 32 years until the Reds moved into Great American Ball Park to begin the 2003 season.

3 Gaylord Perry, Me & the Spitter (New York: Signet Classic, 1974), 181.  

4 Bob Hertzel, “Giants Rout Reds, 16-9, in Pitchers’ Nightmare,” Cincinnati Enquirer, April 19, 1970: 45.

5 Jim McGee, “Those Amazing Giants, a Walkathon Victory,” San Francisco Examiner, April 19, 1970: C1.  

6 Bob Heise took full advantage of the number of Giants baserunners aboard as he was credited with a career-high five RBIs, two more than his previous high of three in a game. Backup catcher Russ Gibson equaled his career high with three RBIs.